He was, without doubt, the most venerated rabbi in Israel at the age of 108.

…But when Yitzhak Kaduri’s much-anticipated letter announcing the name of the Messiah he claimed to have encountered was unsealed a year after his death [in 2006], the Israeli press and world media that found him so quotable in life ignored it.

Now a brand-new book and documentary, “The Rabbi Who Found Messiah,” about his life, death and the secrets he took to the grave, tells the whole mysterious story for the first time.

And what was the name of the Messiah whom Kaduri met after years of praying and fasting? It was Yehoshua – the formal name for Yeshua, or Jesus in the Greek.

WND has been flogging this story since 2007; it’s bizarre that Christians should decide to invest so much in the notion that an aged kabbalist may or may not have been a secret believer in Jesus. The reason that WND is talking about it again now is that it has a book and DVD to sell on the subject, entitled The Rabbi Who Found Messiah: The Story of Yitzhak Kaduri and His Prophecies of the Endtime. It’s by Carl Gallups (aka “PPSIMMONS”), who came to WND‘s attention in 2009 with a video claiming that the Bible names Barack Obama as the anti-Christ (although he’s since hinted that he was being satirical). Gallups pastors the Hickory Hammock Baptist Church in Florida, and further details about the product are on his website; there is an endorsement from none other than Chuck Missler, who is close to WND editor Joseph Farah and who acts as link between Christian fundamentalism and fringe conspiracy theories about UFOs and such.

Gallups’ version of the story includes the detail that Kaduri supposedly saw the Messiah “in a vision”, thus giving the tale a supernatural aspect that ties in with Christian hopes that Jesus will reveal himself to the Jews; but in 2005 I noted a slightly different version, in which Kaduri simply announced that the “soul of the Mashiach has attached itself to a person in Israel”. Kaduri also denounced “the current fascist regime” running Israel, called for the country to become a monarchy, and predicted that Ariel Sharon would be the last prime minister. That’s not how it turned out, but Gallups believes that Kaduri was referring to Sharon’s death; thus the return of Jesus related to when Sharon is finally released from his current lingering vegetative state. This is, of course, highly idiosyncratic and rather distasteful, and it has little to do with historic Christianity, Judaism, or anything even halfway reasonable.

Rav [Dovid] Kaduri told the Yosef family a story that just happened. Just last night his father came to him in a dream. He described to his son the amazing reception that Rav Ovadia received in Heaven. He said that all the great leaders were there to greet him. but he himself was unable to be part of the reception… Rav Dovid had asked his father why he was unable to attend, to which Rav Yitzchak Kaduri explained that he is on a different level in Heaven – the level of “Hassidut” – and form there he was not able to go to the level where the reception for Rav Ovadia was.

“Rav Ovadia”, of course, is the recently deceased (and somewhat unpleasant) Rabbi Ovadia Yosef; but according to Yosef’s obituary in Haaretz:

He shunned Kabbala and its practitioners, but at the urging of Shas political leader Aryeh Deri he agreed to adopt the amulets and incantations of Mekubal Yitzhak Kadurifor Shas’ election campaigns. He visibly abhorred Kaduri and his whisperings, but his acquiescence had a major part in deepening the hold of mystical kabbala culture on Israeli society.

The idea that Kaduri’s “mystical kabbala culture” could take a hold not just in Israel, but among fundamentalist Baptists in Florida and from there to a wider US Christian Right is apparently not so unlikely as one might have thought. It should be remembered that Farah is great enthusiast of “Hebrew Roots”, which seeks to appropriate aspects of Judaism within Christianity. Working with Stephen Strang of Charisma magazine, Farah has also heavily promoted Jonathan Cahn, whose book relating 9/11 to Biblical prophecy has become a bestseller.

My Book Reviews

Note on Attacks

Anyone who comments on current affairs on-line risks being smeared by attack sites and/or abusive Tweets. This is particularly so if one chooses to challenge dishonesty or other kinds of reprehensible behaviour.

As a result of making a stand in a few particular instances, I have become the focus of a number of such attacks. Those who have targeted me include: a Nigerian evangelist who believes in "child witches"; former activists with the EDL; a man with a long history of bad debt and grandiosity; a sockpuppeting tabloid journalist; and a self-serving "celebrity" MP who deploys smears to discourage scrutiny.

The bad faith of such sites and Tweets ought to be self-evident. However, any readers interested in the true background can read this and this.